This cartoon reflects the reality in China that in an effort to present a fascinating GDP performance, China strives to achieve industrial development, which causes severe air pollution and makes people suffer from smog.
The most eye-catching part is the dancing dragon, whose body shapes in three letters: GDP short for Gross Domestic Product. And labeling is embedded in the red dragon. Dragon is considered as a symbol of China and dragon dance is one of Chinese traditional folk arts, so the moment people see the dancing dragon they will link the situation to China even without written explanation. Also, the horns of dragon is adapted into two chimneys, which represents industrial infrastructure and buildings discharging waste gas and causing air pollution. Actors are all dressed in orange custom suits to match with the dragon, but their legs fade in haze. Though most of the actors’ faces are covered with masks, their frown expressions can still be seen, from which we can tell that individuals are unsatisfied with the environment and may also worried about their health conditions.
Despite that all the actors are suffering from the choking and hazardous smog, they still hold their arm straight, extend their legs and exert all their strength to perform. And the laughing expression of the dragon is a striking contrast to individuals’ faces showing agony and misery. The actors can represent citizens while the dragon is China in the world. Though China shows awesome GDP growth and an air of vigor, individuals who work hard for the GDP performance suffer from the consequences. The cartoonist shows his sympathy towards hard-working people and criticize the action and policy that sacrifices environment in exchange for GDP achievement.
GDP is deemed as an extremely assessment criteria in China, especially when evaluating provincial governors. And the way a regional official gets direct access to Premier Li Keqiang or President Xi Jinping is to produce monster GDP readings (Pesek, 2014, para.3). So some of the governors worship GDP and put GDP growth at priority regardless of the cost.
By criticizing GDP worship, the author is looking forward to a change and wish for a better and cleaner future. But just appeals and urges with no actions taken will not help, China needs countermeasures and real actions.
Reference:
William Pesek (2014), China Must End Its GDP Worship. Retrieved from http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-02-27/china-must-end-its-gdp-worship